The uneasy nights are already beginning for Keegan Bradley, who admitted that he\u2019s caught himself in bed thinking about everything from the golf balls players use to potential pairings.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s just in his role as captain.<\/p>\n
Bradley has more on his mind than just that this week at the BMW Championship, which also serves as the final week of automatic qualifying for his own team.<\/p>\n
Bradley is 10th in the U.S. team standings, but he\u2019s cooled off since his victory at the Travelers Championship in June. He has failed to finish better than 30th in his following four starts, and coupled with the emergence of players such as Cameron Young and Chris Gotterup, Bradley\u2019s worthiness as a potential captain\u2019s pick has been up for debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ready for this if it happens. I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s going to,\u201d Bradley told reporters Wednesday at Caves Valley. \u201cI can truly sit here right now and say I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. I have to look at myself just like any other player trying to make the team. I\u2019m 10th in points right now, and that\u2019s not sixth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley said at the beginning of his captaincy that he would only consider playing on his own team if he made the team automatically, on points. That calculus started to change when he made a stunning rally to pass Tommy Fleetwood at the Travelers. Several players, including Patrick Cantlay and Rickie Fowler this week, threw their support behind Bradley as a potential playing captain, and even Rory McIlroy, the top player on the European side, said that Bradley is \u201cdefinitely\u201d among the 12 best Americans.<\/p>\n
Still, Bradley said that his status as a player for the biennial matches is uncertain. He will make his six captain\u2019s picks following next week\u2019s Tour Championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying all year you can\u2019t expect to be on the team unless you\u2019re in the top six,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cMy goal is to go out there, whether I was Ryder Cup captain or not this week, and play well and play well next week at the Tour Championship as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a lot more on my plate here these next couple of weeks. The Ryder Cup has always been so far away, and now it\u2019s right there. Things are definitely amping up. I still have a lot to prove, just as well as everyone around me on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter the outcome, Bradley said that he takes immense pride in how he\u2019s been able to perform inside the ropes this year, compartmentalizing his dual roles. He called it \u201cone of my best years that I\u2019ve ever had\u201d \u2013 and that\u2019s with the outside-the-ropes distraction of the captaincy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are definitely getting more difficult, but it is for everybody on the list of the Ryder Cup,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to get a pick or trying to play your way onto the team, you feel like every round is Q-School. It\u2019s not just difficult for me; it\u2019s difficult for everybody that\u2019s trying to make this team. I feel for them. I know that it\u2019s like. I know people try to act like they\u2019re OK, but they\u2019re nervous every round, and that\u2019s the way it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
At No. 14 in the FedExCup standings, Bradley will play the first two rounds of the BMW alongside Maverick McNealy, another Ryder Cup hopeful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The uneasy nights are already beginning for Keegan Bradley, who admitted that he\u2019s caught himself in bed thinking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-68797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}